The attack on Hyperliquid failed: the exchange linked to CZ lost 4 times more than its victim.
Competition between the two largest decentralized derivatives exchanges has entered a stage of open conflict. A trading address, allegedly funded through the Aster platform, attempted to artificially crash the liquidity of its direct competitor, Hyperliquid. Aster is publicly supported by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ), putting the confrontation in the spotlight. However, this time the system worked differently: the attacker lost four times more than its victim.
The attempted manipulation was recorded by analysts on June 16. Blockchain data indicates that the address belonged to a group of wallets that had withdrawn $2.3 million from Aster a week earlier. Approximately 20 hours before the incident, this wallet transferred $635,000 to Hyperliquid. Immediately after, the trader began aggressively opening a long position on the Fartcoin token.
Timeline of the failed manipulation
The attackers' plan of action was classic and consisted of five sequential steps:
- Accumulating approximately 20% of open interest in a low-liquidity asset.
- Artificially inflating the price through spot market purchases.
- Provoking protective liquidations of large positions.
- Forcibly transferring these positions to the HLP liquidity pool.
- Mass dumping of tokens, leaving the pool with huge losses.
The attackers had used a similar algorithm during past incidents on Hyperliquid. However, this time the strategy failed from the very beginning. After four hours of continuous buying, the wallet was liquidated, so the organizer did not even have time to start inflating the price. As a result, the attacker suffered much greater financial damage than the platform itself. Later, on June 18, well-known trader MartyParty confirmed that Aster was openly attacking Hyperliquid.
Context: The Aster vs. Hyperliquid confrontation
The Aster platform is a multi-chain DEX without mandatory user verification. The project was created by merging the Astherus and APX Finance platforms, followed by a rebranding with support from YZi Labs. The exchange offers clients enormous leverage of up to 1000x. Changpeng Zhao openly calls this project Hyperliquid's main rival. Therefore, the businessman has been repeatedly accused of attacking the platform through Aster.
From an expert analysis perspective, this episode demonstrates the vulnerability of strategies based on forced liquidation of positions in highly liquid pools. Hyperliquid showed resilience to such manipulations, and the failed attack cost its initiators $540,000 compared to $130,000 in losses for the pool itself. This is a clear example of how complex algorithmic schemes can fail when faced with a well-structured risk management system.